


An Accumulation of Anguish

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Series: 30 Days of Dark Fandom Challenge (ACOTAR) [8]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Fluff, Fluff everywhere, Frankenstein AU, Lucien takes in a wounded stray, M/M, Set during ACOMAF, and maybe falls in love along the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 21:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12284574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: The thing behind the castle is a bundle of stitches and ruins.______________________In which Lucien makes bad decisions, tries to believe in his best friend, and may or may not accidentally fall in love with a man he's not even sure is really a man.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt: Lussian, Classic Horror Inspired**

The thing behind the castle is a bundle of stitches and ruins.

Lucien’s first reaction is to draw his sword and adopt a defensive stance, certain this is some monstrous lesser fae sent after them by the Night court. The thing jerks backwards, whimpering wordlessly and holding up its hands, not to strike, but to protect. And that’s when Lucien sees the wings.

He’s only seen wings like that once before - Illryains. So it _is_ a spy from the Night Court. But if so… what happened to it? It’s been shaved down to a grizzle of misshapen black tufts of hair, adorned in naught but a slip of dirties rags. Though it does indeed possess the membranous wings of an Illyrian, they look as if they have been ripped a thousand times over, and bolted back together with some kind of metallic thread. As for the face…

Regardless of the species, even Lucien, who has heard so many horror stories of where his best friend is now trapped, does not think this is a warrior sent from the Night Court. It looks far more like a prisoner than any soldier Luce ever met.

“Hey,” Lucien says, against his better judgement. If the stories are true, Illyrians, driven by their foul master, rape and pillage and murder all those who dare oppose them, the weak, the injured, and the strong. If even a whisper of them are true, he is a dead man. “Hey. Are you… alright?” The thing softens at his tone, gradually removing its protective arms to reveal its face, adopting a cautious gaze.

It would be kinder to put it out of its misery. What lies frontal on its head is not something one could realistically call a face, but rather a mishmash of scraps of flesh scraped together like a child’s drawing of what a face might be, were it to be viewed and known only through a fevered nightmare. There are eyes, somewhere beneath the blood and swollen bruising, deep and dark and watching him like the wild eyes of a frightened animal. Or a child.

If Tamlin could see him now… Oh Cauldron, _Tamlin_. With Feyre kidnapped by the very homeland this creature must hail from somewhere back in its ancestry, Tamlin finding out about this thing, no matter whether it’s friend or foe, is not going to do it any favors. As of late, the High Lord has been unsettled, to say the least. Lucien has faced the brunt of it more than once, as he’s learned to expect from high lords. He knows that it can get far, far worse.

Against his better judgement, he straightens and looks about for prying eyes. They seem to be alone, for now, even if Tam has tripled the guards. Squeezing his jaw, Lucien tries to think of something clever, or whatever the hell the right thing is to do. The thing keeps looking at him with big, doe-eyes. Lucien has witnessed lesser fae with eyes like that before.

This time, maybe he can do something to save them.

“This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” Lucien mutters, shaking his head at his own idiocy. Nipping forwards, he grabs the thing by the shoulder and hauls it up. In keeping with its disorientated naïveté, the thing releases another cry of surprise, and then lets out a sharp yell. “Shhh,” Lucien hushes it sharply, glancing around to check no one is rushing to investigate the noise. “Zip it, dummy, else we’ll both end up looking like you.”

Once he’s sure the coast is clear, Lucien hauls ass with the thing in tow. Said thing has absolutely no clue on how to stay hidden, sidling past hedges until Lucien has to drag him down to duck behind them with him. “Definitely _not_ an Illyrian warrior then.” He can’t believe he’s wishing this thing was one of those psychotic slaughterers, but then right now he is making a lot of sudden decisions he would never before believe he could make.

They scurry their way down to the garden shed, now abandoned since everyone’s been drafted into the army to aid in… well, the official story is to aid in retrieving Feyre. Lucien is beginning to suspect, from the tidbits he finds around Tamlin’s office, that something far worse is unfolding in his best friend’s brain. But even after all these years, he can’t help but see the best in his savior.

Once upon a time, Tamlin saved him from a court corrupt with blood and politics. He can’t blame the man for trying to do the same for his mate. After all, his mother had always told him that his father had done some questionable things to keep her there, but always she had said that he was a ‘good man’ and one worthy of respect. Lucien listens to only two people in his life: his mother, and Tamlin.

And here he is, helping a traitor and monster to the both of them, all because of a moment of panicked pity.

Throwing the thing in first, Lucien slams the door to the shed behind them. It was once a barn when spring kept livestock around the castle grounds, back before the land sickened and all the animals were spirited away by lesser fae. Though this means the place still somehow stinks faintly of sweet hay and faeces, it also means it is enormous. Ample space for hiding a potential murderer.

Lucien, who grew up trained how to keep people a secret from his watchers, is quick to get busy. He ferrets about and locates a suitable place for the thing to sleep - if it even does such a thing - and rearranges shelves and gardening tools to shelter his new hovel from view of the door. The attic of the barn is spacious enough that it shouldn’t feel too trapped, and those wings hardly look fit for flying. Admittedly, he was never so crazy as to keep his lover (lover _s_ ) concealed within sheds, but then this is a new experience all together. This time, he could get himself killed as well, not just his stowaway.

Resorting to repeated, slowed gestures rather than words, which seem lost on the thing, he guides it up and tries to communicate where it should stay. And not be seen. It just stares blankly at him. “Oh Mother,” Lucien sighs, collapsing back on the bed he’s assembled for it out of bags of soil and old hay-bales. “We’re doomed.”

The thing sits down next to him, and stares. He looks back, even if it makes his stomach turn to see such a mockery of a face, gnarled by thick black stitches and more purple and red than the dark brown that lies underneath. Up close, he deduces it is male, if whatever it is have genders. The dirty rags stink.

“I’ll bring you some clothes tomorrow, if I can,” Lucien says with a heavy exhale. It is wasted on the other, who sticks to his staring. “You need to-” Lucien doesn’t get to finish, because he is suddenly on his back.

Pinned against sacks of soil, Lucien isn’t even surprised. After all, this is what logic predicted: take in a murderer, murderer murders you. This whole injured bird technique was really genius. Knew exactly which of Lucien’s buttons to push, which weak spots haunted him every night as he listened to Tamlin rage destroying objects in place of those he wish he could get his hands on.

Instead of the huge muscles binding the thing swiftly tearing Lucien in half, however, they stay still. As before, the thing - him, _him_ \- stares at Lucien. Those pitch black eyes study his face, before dropping to examine the rest of him. Fingers follow the gaze, trailing down his shirt to graze the exposed glimpse of his belly, making him shiver involuntarily.

The thing looks back at him. Its head, baring that monstrous face, dips down and presses what might be supposed to be its forehead against Lucien’s. The thing grunts.

And then it lets him go.

Heart drowning out his ears, Lucien sits up shaking, amazed to be alive let alone at the weird moment with what is a demonisation of those he thought already demons. He returns the stare for a long few minutes, before standing.

“I’ll be back tomorrow. I promise.”

The thing watches him leave all the way out the door, standing, but holding back from pursuing. Big dark eyes follow him all the way. Big dark eyes that are going to get the pair of them killed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Lucien,” Tamlin yells after him as he skadoodles out of the dining room, “I need to talk to you about-”

“I’ll be back soon I promise!” Lucien calls over his shoulder. “But I’m certain I saw the Bogge around this time yesterday and swore I’d check it out.”

Tamlin mutters something desolate behind him, but the honest answer? Lucien doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to hear whatever it is that Tamlin has been keeping stashed within the confines of his brains, at least not for another hour. 

Also, perhaps even more pressingly, The Thing won’t have eaten in at nearly twenty-four hours and Lucien doesn’t want to test the murderer theory by increasing the potential for cannibalism. 

Fetching the batch of supplies he filched from the kitchen earlier that day, he slips down the garden path with a smooth grin to the guards, and escapes back to the shed. Glancing up at the attic and around the shed, he finds that the Illyrian is… not there. 

“Oh,” he whimpers. “Fuck.”

He would repeat similar sentiments a moment later, only the air is whumped out of him as a heavy weight is dropped on top of him. Planted face-first into the ground, for a second he thinks some gardening crap comes loose. Thankfully, the thing is quick to reveal himself. 

Rolling over of him, he scampers over to crouch before him, peering down at him collapsed upon the floor. It is grinning far too much for something that looks like a nightmare made flesh. “Owch,” Lucien groans. The thing bats his wings. “Oh great. So those aren’t buggered.” The wings spread to an impressive couple of metres, leading Lucien to question how he managed to position himself atop the ceiling, but there are more important things to worry about.

“For you,” Lucien says with a wince as he holds out the bundle of supplies. The thing pounces upon the offered goods cheerfully, slumping back on his arse and unpacking them into his lap. Lucien, bruised and aching, manages to sit up and watch his reaction. 

The bread gets rammed straight into his mouth, making him even more stunningly attractive than he already is, whilst the rest gets spread out in a circle around him. Some of the cheese is left in his lap, and the clothes merely get tossed aside. Never mind how long it took Lucien to somehow find a set that might fit the venerable giant, his priority is the food. Which, given how malnourished he looks despite his impressive build, is understandable. 

Just watching his captive-turned-pet chow down on a week’s worth of food in ten minutes, Lucien tries to get him to slow down to only mild success. Still, at least if the thing chokes to death it’ll save both their asses from the eventual retribution they’ll be getting. “You really need a name, thing,” he tells him whilst the thing manages to fit both an apple, a slab of cheese, and an entire loaf of bread into its mouth at once, but fails to chew them in the slightest. “What are we going to call you?” 

The thing doesn’t answer, too busy trying to dislodge its jaw like a snake to swallow its load, failing, and relenting to work on the cheese and bread first. “Dog? You eat like one. Is that disrespectful? I feel like once you remember you’re a bloodthirsty killer, antagonising you is a bad idea. Name, name, name,” Lucien hums to himself.

“Cassian,” says the thing. 

“ _ What _ ?” Lucien demands, looking up from where he was imagining his impending demise in the cauldron of his lap. “You  _ talk _ ?” He gets no response this time, only the thing crushing an apple in half with his hand and trying to suction up the remains. “Okay, okay, I get it. Playing hard to get… to know. Okay, Cassian. We’ll go with that.” There’s no feedback given on the decision, because Cassian has just discovered the cake he managed to have boxed up and smuggled from the kitchens. Lucien can’t blame him on that one. 

“You’re kind of gross, Cassian,” he tells the man with jam and icing now on his brows as well as all around his mouth. “And not just in the face department.” Cassian just grins, looking utterly thrilled with himself as he devours an entire cake whole. “Geez, didn’t they feed you back in the Night Court? They evil even to their own kind?” 

Cocking his head, he just stares at him as if trying to decode the nonsense spoken to him. It’d be kind of endearing, were it not for the hellspawn face he bore. Inhaling sharply, Lucien braves reaching forward to lightly touch the wounds marring his profile. “Don’t those hurt?” Cassian just smiles back at him, with as much as his disfigured gash of a mouth mouth is capable of smiling. “I’m no healer, but I’ll do what I can. Tomorrow though. Tamlin will come searching if I’m much longer.” 

Still with frosting dusting the tip of his nose, Cassian blinks back at him in lack of understanding. “Don’t look at me like that. You  _ proved _ you know words. You do speak.”

“Cassian,” the thing says, as if to mock him.   
“Okay, Cassian, I get it. That’s your one word. What, do I have to teach you how to speak too?” The vacant smile he receives in response seems to be a yes, which is not the answer he was hoping for. “Let’s stick with not getting us both killed first, okay? I’m no governess. And besides. I think you not speaking is probably for the best.” 

He watches Cassian tries to lick the frosting off of his nose with the tippy tip of his tongue, sighing. “You could really do better at living up to the whole murderer reputation, you know? It would make realising my moronic mistake and turning you in a lot easier.”  

“Cassian,” the thing says. 

“Yeah I know. I’m never going to actually do that, but let me pretend I have a chance at sanity for a moment. You realise this is both going to get us killed, right?”

“Cassian.”

Rolling his eyes, Lucien picks up the items of clothes he procured and carefully tugs Cassian to stand up. “Come on, harbinger of doom. The least you can do to repay me is not stink of doodie.” He is surprisingly compliant as Lucien works off the disgusting rag from his body, igniting it in a burst of much needed fire. “Upsy,” he orders, as his mother used to do back when he was barely more than an infant. The thing, by some miracle, sticks his arms up.

Chuckling to himself despite the devastating situation, Lucien tugs the Spring Court robes onto Cassian’s nude body. Whilst swollen with muscles and as chiselled as a Day Court sculpture, Cassian’s body is as impossible as his face. Each limb appears to have been buckled to his torso with thick chord, and a multitude of scrapes and breakages have been mended by further attention. 

“Just what happened to you, Cassian?” Lucien asks, buttoning up his shirt and tugging on a jacket to help him out in the cold breezy nights. “You do look handsome in Tamlin’s attire though. Never thought I’d meet someone even huger than he is. Don’t tell him I took his cast offs though, he’ll kill me.” He laughs darkly. “As if this whole thing isn’t reason enough.” 

Buttoning his collar, Lucien looks up at him and finds himself staring, though he thinks it’s rather warranted given the face he’s examining. “This is suicide, Cassian. And maybe I will still tell him. But try and stay safe…  _ thing _ . This should be enough to last you a few days, even with your appetite. Tamlin is going off to the wall in a few days so… I’ll be able to visit you more often then. But until then…” He looks at the stray he should not feel so weirdly attached to, especially when there is jam smeared across his tragedy of a face. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  
The thing grins back at him, and Lucien realises they are all really, _ really _ doomed. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is such a gross misuse of Mary Shelley's fucking masterpiece but if it means chances for gay I'm good


End file.
